Come get your first look at the new Spire of Dawn box set for Age of Sigmar as we take a look at what’s inside!

Today we are doing to unbox the new Warhammer Age of Sigmar Spire of Dawn Value Box and it is indeed a pretty good value.

You get two different armies, Skaven and Elves, in the Spire of Dawn box. A lot of veterans out there will notice this as the old Island of Blood box we have seen before from GW.

Looking at the instructions we quickly see that all of the models are the push fit style minis so they can be assembled quickly. The box also comes with both Square and Round bases sets.

A booklet is included in the box set that has a little bit of fluff and all of the Warscrolls needed to use the miniatures in a game, plus two Battalions and in a new precident the points costs for the models in General’s Handbook format.

The Dawnspire stands at the edge of the Transient Isles. Immense, drifting islands of black stone hanging in the air above an azure sea, they were once the subject of foul sorceries, a powerful Chaos wizard seeking to bring them crashing down. The mages of the Eldritch Council were able to stop this foul ritual, but not before two of the islands were lost to the depths.

To protect the isles, the Dawnspire was created; housing objects of incredible power, it is protected by the most elite warriors the Transient Isles have ever known. Yet cruel eyes glow in the corners of the realms. fixated on the Dawnspire, intent on harnessing its power for their own dark purpose…

Dawnspire is a fantastic box set filled with Citadel miniatures, with a book telling the story of the Skaven Warlord Ripsnikk’s attempt to take the Dawnspire from the Swifthawk Agents who protect it. 74 miniatures are included, split between Skaven and Aelf forces:

The box also includes the complete rules for playing games of Warhammer age of Sigmar, 2 Warscroll Battalions and 2 Pitched Battle Profiles, one of each for each force. Supplied with round and square bases for each model.

~Head over toGames Workshopand grab up theSpire of Dawnbox set and save a ton of money! This is a great way to get started or expand on an existing army!

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Love the inclusion of square bases. I’m sure it’s just leftover stock, and I imagine they’ll eventually be unavailable or will eventually arrive with just rounds, but it’s a great deal for anyone looking to play 9th age or KoW.

Personally I’m still holding my breath for some more AoS unique factions. Some duardin or humans. One of those plus GH2 and I’d probably become an investor.

Statham

More Death stuff for me. Nagash and co plus Flesh Eater Courts were the last whiff of anything that Grand Alliance got. My boy the Supreme Lord of Undeath needs more minions, and a role as lead villain over Archaon for a while.

ZeeLobby

It would be cool to see some new sculpts for death. I imagine there’s crazier stuff in the new realms.

Karru

I highly doubt that we will be seeing much stuff for Death any time soon. They got quite a bit of new stuff during End Times including Nagash and have a lot of “up-to-date” kits thanks to the 8th edition Army Book release in the ages past.

Also, isn’t Death the least played faction in the game right now? I have seen countless Sigmarine armies and other Order armies, some Chaos armies and quite a few Night Goblin and Savage Orks, but not that many Death Armies outside maybe a couple Flesheater Courts.

GW will most likely pump out even more stuff for Order to boost the sales there. Order is currently the largest faction and as such the most popular. It’s the same problem that we have in 40k. Imperium is the largest faction, thus people play it more, thus people buy more Imperial stuff, thus GW supports it more than others, thus people play Imperials more due to the support, rule-wise and model-wise.

What I see happening for future releases will be something like half Order Releases and the rest will be split amongst the other Factions, basically like we have with 40k and the Imperials. One month will be something for Chaos/Death/Destruction and then at least one month will be Order, then one of the others, then Order another month for Order. If not an entire release, they will include something like a kit or two or a campaign book that will include Order in a major way.

Koen Cambré

Ofcourse death is played the least. It’s essentially just 1 WHFB that survived the transition to AoS (since they axed tomb kings, vampire counts are all that remain).

Every other grand alliance consists of more armies. The more armies it consisted off, the better they did in the summer campaign. Destruction also performed poorly (just 2 old WHFB armies).

Order won by a landslide because it’s such a “clowncar of armies”.

Koen Cambré

Agree… not a single new model since end-times sadly.

Weird, because VC was actually one of the most popular/best selling armies in the WHFB days.

And they have such cool lore/undead archtypes to build on. (especially now that tomb kings can be redone, nighthaunt can be expanded for sure as can vampires, and they haven’t even really touched on a lot of the “mad scientist” lore ala Frankestein a lot).

neshta

I am the same. I DO love that they are still including all the old stuff, but I’d like more actual new factions, with the spiffy new books!

ZeeLobby

yeah, to be honest, I think the transition would have been less slap in the face if they had 4 factions ready to go, and simply discontinued the old ones. It sounds a lot more drastic, but then I think less people could have had room to complain, as it really would have been a whole new game.

That and the aesthetics would all be cohesive.

Hawt Dawg

I couldn’t agree with your post more.

I loved the old workd, but I truly am impressed with the new factions of AoS.

Now only to get my 40K buddies to drop their bolters and add some high fantasy AoS sorcery.

ZeeLobby

Probably never happen for my crew. Most people simply just don’t have the money to support two GW games at once, and many are waiting to see where 8th edition goes, as 40K was their main love. If the models were good enough I’d still pick them up to paint and or play against those I could find though.

neshta

Funnily enough I am in the same boat with 40K. I kind like to just pick up some models here and there, just to paint. But I don’t see a reason to get into 40k at the moment, what with 8th on the horizon.

ZeeLobby

Yeah. I’m on hold with both right now. I used to buy pretty regularly, but have moved to smaller cheaper skirmish games until I see where they’re heading with both systems.

Karru

I’m still waiting to see an actual reason to pick up AoS. It’s just not different enough and lacks quite a bit of unique character for me to justify starting it. I’d much rather get more 40k stuff, especially since I have more options in terms of looks for the armies.

That is one of the more or less boring things about AoS. The model design feels way too similar between factions. Thus far only Wood Elves are differing from it, but they are walking trees so they are quite different from the get go.

But then we look at Sigmarines, Bloodbound, Slayers and Orks. Large buff men/dwarfs/Orks with either lots of armour or no armour. It just feels like my options are buff men with armour on or off and that’s it when it comes to the new stuff.

That’s the reason why I’d very much like to see more Regular Human and Elf Factions get supported. High Elves and Empire models that don’t look like they spent their downtime going to the gym and only use Steroids as nourishment.

This leads to me being even more worried about the future of AoS. Does the design team have any other ideas besides that? Do they have any plans of making something more slim and elegant? The Wood Elves were something like that, but I’d like to see beings made of flesh follow the same design.

I’d much rather see something different for a change when it comes to the looks of things made of flesh and blook. Besides, we have yet to see something new for the humans in the game.

Hawt Dawg

Well I have two Warmahordes armies now and they have passed far and beyond what armies from GW I have ever owned in terms of money spent. GW cost is an illusion these days especially with all the army deals they have been releasing.

ZeeLobby

LoL… OK. Comparable if you don’t care whats in your army or how good it is on the table.

Please lets not go down this farcical road where GW is not the most expensive tabletop wargame provider out there. The box sets are good deals, if you want whats in the box. Expanding beyond that can get very expensive very fast, depending on whether you want to compete, or build a certain army. Comparably I can get most of a WMH faction for less.

Of course we have the option to buy as much of what we want of any faction, but there are base costs associated with games, and to say that GW’s is an illusion is just reaching for straws.

Hawt Dawg

Compete? Another illusion that the majority of the players are running in the tournament/competive environment. As for cost per mini, army, system, you are welcome to keep deluding yourself with old stats if it keeps your bubble from bursting.

You want to win the internet? Keep working on your skills.

Karru

I really don’t get to play that much any more, so I really only care about the looks of my army. I like to spent days assembling, converting, kit-bashing and painting my models to have a unique looking collection. I like to make lists and stories based around my armies and unit.

WarmaHordes doesn’t really offer me this. I collect Khador, but I have pretty much the same vibe from that I get from Flames of War. It has this “fixed structure” to it that I dislike in the grand scheme. Part of it has to do with the models being very mixed bag of high quality sculpts ruined by medium quality resin that they use these days. Then you have the fact that basically everything in it is named. Just like in Flames of War where I’d build a specific Panzer Division for my Germans or a American Paratrooper Company, I have a hard time trying to come up with my own stories and trying different paint schemes.

This is why GW is still the best company for me personally. High quality multi-part plastics that are easily found in many places. There are countless stores that have GW products in stock and they are well supplied with them. Another company has yet to get this far, I’m afraid. Either I would have to order from outside the country and with luck wait only 1-2 weeks to get my products or order from within in hopes that I get my product within the year. If I order from the outside, I have to make the choice of paying quite the postage cost each time I order something or I have to order in bulks, neither sounds nice to me. I used to do the latter, but these days I prefer buying a kit or two from a webstore that operates within my country. Nicely priced postage, fast delivery speed, great customer service and good supply of Vallejo and GW products.

Hawt Dawg

Good post!

The reason I started with Warmahordes was not like many online keyboard warriors, personally insulted by GW, was because I wanted to play something different. I have busted my nuggets off completing terrain (some seen here: http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?258435-Showing-off-a-gaming-table! ) and getting all gamers who play do so with painted and based models. It is still a game but there is no need for it to be just numbers and probabilities.

I still think GW makes the best models and have great games. The problem for me is that I have lost interest in 40K, for the same reason as I lost interest in WFB, I am dying to try AoS and Blood Bowl out. Unfortunately, all of my GW gaming buddies have no interest at the moment to test either game. They are just so deep into 40K with all new armies being released. I suspect I can get them into BB but there have to be more teams released for them to dip their toes.

ZeeLobby

I’m talking about competing with friends. Another illusion that people who want to compete can only be in the tournament/competitive environment. You can keep spouting unrealities tho, if it makes your fanboyism more comfortable.

Hawt Dawg

Fanboyism? White Snake tune all over.

See that is why I broke you.

neshta

You are RIGHT on the nose there! I totally agree with you on that.

Discoqing

Why is this even being reviewed??
It’s the old box set, haha.

ThorsHammer

Any word on when they’ll be back in stock?

BloodAngel

Yeah, Isn’t this just Isle of Blood?

Emperor’s Champion

with round bases and scenarios/ war scrolls in place of the 8th ed rulebook.

Xodis

Yeah the models are not that special since it was part of WHFB. What is special is with this being released in the AoS we now know that High Elves exist within the AoS setting, and the inclusion of rules/points in the box sets a standard that will hopefully transfer over to future AoS releases and hopefully even 40K.

Emperor’s Champion

As much as I am happy about this box set, I kinda feel sorry for the hungry hyenas, known as fantasy veterans who destroyed the game at their own fault immediately giving their hopes up and being adamantly convinced this means GW are bringing back their lost game again.

Karru

What exactly are you saying, I am genuinely curious. Are you saying that Fantasy players ruined Fantasy?

Emperor’s Champion

In my local area definitely, people including myself already pumping away at 40k decided to give the path of fantasy a go when 8th ed came out and I fell in love with skaven and all 3 elf races.

Anyway in my local shops fantasy players tended to be older, overly competitive vets. Nothing wrong with that in itself besides the fact that they may be good at winning but not as good as teaching the game and making it feel welcoming and fun.
I got laughed at because apparently my units weren’t big enough and told to go play the kiddies game (40k), this high brow attitude towards 40k players and new players in general just stank in my area. When age of sigmar came along, they got angry and left, actually felt comfortable walking into and playing at games workshop.
Not saying all are immature but that is the sort of welcome me and my friends got to fantasy.
Even after that, I still mourn for the game in a way because I did have a few good games and was really getting into my elves and skaven during end times .

Sleeplessknight

Oh wow, it’s a good thing you’re now in a safe space where none of the players will ever be jerks. I mean it wasn’t like you could just NOT play with those guys and enjoy the 8th within your own circle of friends. If only we had the free will to not be forced to play with those people. That’s alright now because those old vets don’t have a game to play and you get to play in a pool of people who wouldn’t have played with the grump old vets anyways. And remember, all vets are grumpy WAAC players the same way all black people are criminals, all natives are drunks and all caucasians are rednecks.

Karru

Ah, that’s what you meant. I seriously thought that you blamed Fantasy players for ruining a game that GW originally ruined. Those players were total A-holes by the sounds of it, sorry to hear you had such people around.

I never really met people IRL that acted like that when it came to Fantasy vs 40k. I do remember seeing that sort of behaviour in the internet though. Fantasy was always considered the more strategic and tactical game, even I thought it to be the case. I still wouldn’t call 40k “childish”.

I’ve had the unfortunate event of seeing people that do behave very similarly to those you described when it came to teaching the game and explaining what is good and what is not. Luckily the vast majority of people in my group was always the kind type who only cared about the collecting, painting and general banter that existed around the game. If there ever was a new guy who came to the club and tried to explain a starting player why their “choice of wargear or units was suboptimal”, we would usually kindly inform him how we ran things.

Nothing makes me more mad towards another people when it comes to this hobby than those that try to explain why you shouldn’t collect an army you enjoy because “they are not optimal”. Whenever a starting player would come to me for advice what to do next for his army, I would always go with the same line to begin with, “What do you like to add to your collection?” Then I inform him about different options if he doesn’t exactly know or inform of different things to maybe consider when it comes to the unit of his choice. Wargear, possible need for Transport and the most important thing, how cool they would look on the battlefield and how to make sure it happens.

I do agree that there are many old veterans that have become quite bitter along the years. I speak from experience as I have seen this happen with quite a few I used to know. It’s the usual “this game was so much better during X edition, nothing like it is now!” I am like that as well, but my difference is that I always keep up with the latest edition of it, find the positives from it and then teach it to new players. I always try to paint as positive light about the hobby as I can. I miss 5th edition a great deal and dislike 7th edition quite a bit. I’m still down to play a game of either one if someone asks me to.

But to add to the comment who killed Fantasy, the players or the company, I’d say it was a mixture of both but mostly GW. We had loads of players during 7th edition, vast majority of them dropped after 8th dropped because their collections were too small to play it properly. Not because some veteran said so, but because the game was so badly balanced and done. Those that had larger collection with large units would obliterate those with smaller collections because the game favoured large units. It was increasingly difficult to bring new people in when you had to, at some point, inform them about the large investment Fantasy was. 40k was the cheaper option during those days. It felt wrong not to spill the beans about that fact before these new players got too invested into it.

“Luckily the vast majority of people in my group was always the kind type
who only cared about the collecting, painting and general banter that
existed around the game.”

Same, and this is why I am really saddened at the aftermath of divide in the the Warhammer community. It is hard to forgive a decision that has caused such a schism. :/

WHFB and 40K were/are threatened by vast armies as rulesets have been designed to encourage bigger and bigger collections (more and more $pend). The bigger the forces, the more you “optimise” and “streamline” play to run. Where a trooper counted, we have “wound blobs”.

This type of encouragment leads to certain very vocal elements in any hobby or sport and the a few of the personalities evident at times. 😀

You can make short term, very nice profit, but as rediscovered for the umpteenth time (my bookshelf groans under brand and corporate suicide expositions), it cripples entry of new buy in/customers/players. The result is why car companies have had “Entry Level” models for their ranges.

What is one detachment in 40k, constituted an army in 2nd Edition for example. Now 40k plays with more units than I saw in some EPIC ruleset games. 8(

It is of utterly, near won’t get out of bed, surprise that Killteam is proving so popular. Small toe-dip try out forces, with quick games using engaging rules. And why AoS has smaller skirmish exampes of play with new players expounding on the pick up and play gaming.

These smaller, tidy and tactical games encourage the beating heart of wargaming hobby and in some respects, have been missing from GW for many years, with commiserate effect.

Good to go sets like these are great for friends to start collecting and enjoying the banter of hobby mates I grew up with years ago, ..oh and the occaisional game we played among catch ups over the weekend. 🙂

Karru

AoS is scaled very well. The Start Collecting! box and maybe a box or two and you already have quite the army to field. You can get into the game and the experience doesn’t change that much depending on the scale. Only thing that changes is the amount of time needed for the game at that point.

40k currently suffers from great scaling issues. It doesn’t know what it wants to be. They give some armies weapons with 12-24″ range with strength 4-6 AP 3-6 and then they give some armies 72″ Strength 7-10 weapons or even D-weapons. Then they give some armies cheap Super Heavies and Gargantuans while they leave others with Apocalypse priced ones that are weaker than those that were priced around 400pts mark.

Multiple Detachments and Alternative Detachments clearly states that they want people to make Apocalypse as the new standard, 3000+pts at least. I am not sure if GW realises that themselves. They give armies obscene amounts of firepower, even with low model counts that tells me that you don’t want to play small games because those are decided with two dice rolls, who goes first and stealing the initiative.

I recently played 2 games of 5th edition for fun, 750pts and 1500pts, and realised something pretty interesting. First of all, the amount of shooting I was actually able to do. My first turn consisted of shooting with maybe 10 weapons total, most of them Missile Launchers or Lascannons. I didn’t manage to make too much damage thanks to the amount of Cover Saves and Pen/Glancing table back then. It was on the 3rd turn that I was finally able to shoot about the same amount that I currently can in 7th edition.

I noticed that the biggest thing I found to effect this was Rapid Fire weapon change. Because you couldn’t shoot over 12″ if you moved, it removed a lot of shots if you wished to grab objectives or get into better positions. In 7th, I would just move and shoot with loads of guns each and every turn thanks to the change.

There was also the massive price difference. Pretty much everything was more expensive, so I had to field less models on the board. The wound allocation helped with speed of the game greatly and made it easier to position models. Heavy Weapons not being able to move and shoot, Assaulting being fixed distance, all of these made the game so much more interesting to play. I had a unit of 5 Assault Marines annihilate a Leman Russ and a unit of 10 Guardsmen while my nigh invincible Ironclad Dreadnought killed 1 Command Squads, 20 Guardsmen and a Heavy Weapon team. Dropped in on turn 1, suffered around 10 Glancing hits but none were able to immobilise it or destroy it. It got shot by 6 order aided Lascannons for 2 whole turns.

It was great fun to see units that are now worthless to do such damage. Of course I got extremely lucky, but it was still fun to see that my opponent couldn’t just glance it to death in a single round of shooting.

Good points man; I agree AoS scales well as it allows you to begin at small skirmishes and move up from there. For me, the aesthetic and lore doesnt appeal, so I’m still running about the Old World 😀

One thing among many I agree with in regard to more expensive forces (points) that a lot of folks miss is this; table size.

That has not changed in awhile, on the whole GW operates with the median of 6×4. This hasn’t changed much since 2nd Ed or earlier; so now you have vast armies clashing over tennis court distances. Which leads to abstraction for folks to be able to weild large collections.

I;ve always gone back to 2nd Ed and Necromunda, as personally, I really enjoy tactical 40k combat where each trooper can potentially affect the outcome. 🙂